


Fates For Free

by buttfulmavinness



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Fate Binding, Fluff, Humour, M/M, or at least an attempt at humour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 00:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4501575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttfulmavinness/pseuds/buttfulmavinness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Can you really blame him? The supernatural is so cool. Hot strangers are so persuasive. Combined, Hide can't even think of saying no.<br/>Okay, maybe he's YOLOing a bit too hard, but what's the worst that could happen? Accidentally ending up as a bondage partner for mistaking fate binding as magic and not some underground slang for ropes in bed? He's been able to talk himself out of worse. Or not. Actually not, but that's not the point.<br/>A handsome stranger offers to work some magic on him. For FREE.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fates For Free

**Author's Note:**

> idk what i'm doing these days

A chair is pulled closer to Hide for a man he’s never seen before to sit on. It’s not completely out of the ordinary, he is in a bar after all. But for some reason Hide doesn’t feel like the man is there to throw pickup lines at him: maybe it’s his clothes, or the expectant smile on his face? He almost looks like he’s about to sell him something, and Hide can easily imagine him behind the counter of a shop of some kind. Jewelry? Or soaps. Perhaps he’s thinking of The Body Shop.

“Good evening. My name is Tsukiyama Shuu,” a card is offered to Hide, and he takes it, still a bit wary, “and I would like to ask you if you’d let me bind your fate?”

Maybe he had been wrong after all; maybe he was about to throw the world’s worst pickup line at him. Hide tries to stop the corner of his mouth from twitching suspiciously, but can feel the muscles pull it up.

“Um… I’m sorry, that was… I can’t do this, that was horrible,” he laughs, tears gathering in his eyes. He wipes them away to see the man before him baffled for good.

“Excuse me, but I believe it’s quite rude to call someone’s work horrible without even seeing it.”

“Hahaha… Uh- What?”

The man who introduced himself as Tsukiyama smoothens his shirt and cocks his head to his side in prideful manner before explaining:

“I come from a long and prestigious line of fate binders and I find it offending, that you’d find it in yourself to claim it to be horrible without even having tried it out for yourself. Especially when I’m offering to do it for free.” He pauses for a second. “Although I’ve never charged anyone before…”

Hide blinks, once, twice, and turns back to the half-drunk pear cider. It’s almost like the man believes he’s some sort of a magician. A modern day wizard. He takes a gulp. Humour him, his instinct says, humour him even if it’s just for a second.

“So uh…” he tries to hold his laughter in, “what exactly does it do? The binding thing?”

Wait, it’s not a bondage thing, is it? He’s good looking, and Hide can imagine getting it on with him, and it’s certainly not the first time having a bit of rope in the bedroom, but…

“It binds the fate that is most probably to make it reality. For example, you have an exceptionally good fate ahead of you, and if you let me bind it to you, it will, without a doubt, become your future.”

…apparently he was wrong, so it doesn’t matter.

“Wait, I thought fate was just a straight line, like the plot of a story.”

Tsukiyama immediately shakes his head. Hide begins to feel like he’s back in school, getting taught the same math formula for the sixth time already. Some things just never stuck with him.

“No, no, fate changes all the time, it’s a common misconception that there is only one fate. Your fate truly relies on the choices you make as well as the choices others make. Several paths, strings knotting together, that sort of thing.” Tsukiyama waves his hand around in frustration. No doubt Hide isn’t the first one he’s had to explain things to. And probably won’t be the last. It seems to him like Tsukiyama does this fate binding offering thing of his quite often. Maybe it’s a hobby for him? Confusing and scaring the living shit out of strangers at bars.

“Oh. Huh. So, if you don’t bind my fate..?”

“It might not come true and you’ll lose a great chance. As will I. Your fate is exceedingly bright and like nothing I’ve ever bound before...”

Tsukiyama’s last words sound quite ominous in Hide’s ears. He knows he needs to say no. But magic and the supernatural… He stifles a groan directed at himself.

“Fine, I’ll let you ‘seal my fate’ or whatever. Just let me finish this, okay?” Bottoms up! He’ll need every drop of alcohol to drown his awaiting regret in.

“Bind you fate. Thank you, I’m happy you took me up on my offer…”

Hide swallows the cool liquid in his mouth. Tsukiyama stares at him expectantly, but Hide doesn’t catch what he’s going for with the hand gestures and raised eyebrows.

“Unfortunately I do not believe I caught your name.”

“Mm.”

Another awkward silence as Hide tries to swallow the next gulp.

“Hide. Sorry. So… Shuu, was it?”

Tsukiyama holds up a finger and opens his mouth, but frowns before he says anything. He closes his mouth, opens it again, and waves his hand in the air.

“That’s- that’s fine, yes.”

“So, where we gonna do this… Bonda- Binding! Thing?” That was a close one if Hide’s ever seen one. Maybe he is a bit too into the thought of having one of them in ropes.

“My apartment complex holds all the needed supplies for the script. It is within walking distance, so you need not worry about that.”

Going to an apartment of someone who speaks of magic like it’s everyday life for him. Sometimes Hide wonders if he was dropped on his head when he was a toddler. But then there are times like these that he’s sure he was. Not a shred of doubt.

 

“Nice place you got here. Big. Spacious.” Tsukiyama doesn’t seem to catch the tone in his voice. Hide could move all of his belongings into the _small_ entry.

“Thank you, although I’d like add more space to the east side. I feel like I’m still lacking room for my clothes.” Well that’s a pleasure to hear. Needing to knock down your neighbour’s walls for more space for your socks. Charming.

There is a brief second Hide wonders how to casually ask someone to become his sugar daddy. As much as he loves his job, it doesn’t pay enough to keep up with his love for high tech. Shit’s expensive and needs a lot of room to be stored, and Hide wouldn’t mind some extra help in fulfilling his life goal in drowning in all the newest gadgets and gizmos.

Tsukiyama makes his way to the cupboards, hovering his hands over jars. Hide corrects his mental image of Tsukiyama in The Body Shop into a more luxurious, antique shop where they make the soap themselves. And sell it at ridiculously high prices. Handmade and au naturel is what makes the purses sing.

“Sit, sit, I’ll just find out… Which ones are… You and you. Lemon grass? No, no. Rosemary. Lavender, lavender… No, not right, not right at all.”

He sits down on a bar stool like instructed, right by the counter. He’s seen these in magazines, a big stone slab in the middle of a kitchen. Really only works if you have the space, and Tsukiyama sure as hell does. The side counter is two metres away, enough space to have the middle one work as a dinner table and have someone cook right behind them.

“Are you making tea or something?”

“Tea? What would I make tea for?" Apprently not for hospitality. "Oh, I wish I had fresh garlic, that’d make an excellent base.”

Hide has to turn back from ogling the apartment to his host.

“Wait, are you actually gonna pop out a cauldron and start chanting some weird magic?”

“My binding is not simple witchcraft, it’s a gift!” Tsukiyama takes offense. “A gift passed down, generation after generation. Something I’ve honed to perfection through all my years and take great pride in!”

It’s funny, seeing a full grown man pout and huff without an ounce of shame. The whole situation feels like something out of a comedy. Even if Hide sometimes thinks his life is pretty much a joke, this seems to be taking it a bit too far. Him, sitting in an apartment of a man who probably wipes his ass with bills bigger than he’s ever seen before, about to take part in some mystical ritual bondage thing.

He watches Tsukiyama crush the herbs in a bowl in silence and takes in a whiff of the smell. A sneeze shakes his body and he tries to turn away from the fragrance. It’s not that it’s bad; it’s just really strong and… Oh, who is he kidding, it smells like shit and he can’t figure out how Tsukiyama can stand such a smell when he’s so close to the source. It’s bitter and burning his nose, and he flinches back when Tsukiyama brings the bowl over to him. He would probably be begging him to take it away if he didn’t have a ridiculous need to seem like an adult to some extent.

“Now I added some mint, evergreen rosemary, mugwort and caraway to this red rosewater. Take off your jacket, I need access to your arms.”

Hide shrugs his hoodie off, pulling up the sleeves of the thin long sleeved shirt he has under. Tsukiyama tuts and points at his chest.

“Off with it, I don’t want the sleeves unrolling into the script on accident.”

“You, uh… Realise I have nothing under it, right?”

Tsukiyama pauses his bustling. His mouth opens, closes, opens again, and Hide's impressed with his imitation of a fish. Tsukiyama brings his hand to his forehead, partly covering his eyes.

"Just... Take it off, it's fine," he says, even though it's clear as a cloudless winter sky that it is not fine, and a heated red is rising up his cheeks.

Hide sort of feels bad for him. He seems so eager to do this magic thing of his, but Hide's not being the easiest person to subject to it right now. Nevertheless, he wiggles his way out of his shirt, reminding himself that this is nothing sexual, and he has no need to feel so abashed. He tries not to tense up when he feels Tsukiyama take his arm to lay it on the table like a surgeon, about to cut it all open.

“So uh,” he begins as he crumples his shirt in his lap. It doesn’t cover anything, but it’s still comforting, for one reason or another. Maybe because he’s able to hide any unwanted boners he might sprung when Tsukiyama’s looking at his arm _so attentively_. “Whatcha doing?”

“Runes,” Tsukiyama answers, leaving it at that. He’s procured a very small and ornamented paintbrush and dips it into the dark green mush in the bowl. It reminds Hide of liquified school lunch salad and it smells even worse up close. He turns his head away from it as Tsukiyama places the brush on his skin, drawing a perfect circle.

“You said my fate was good and that’s why you wanted to bind it. Do bad fates exist?”

“Naturally. Accidents, bad decisions, they’re all part of bad fates. In fact I saw that the bartender was not going to have a very pleasant night. He might end up breaking a leg at home, or have some other physical injury.”

He keeps breathing through his mouth, and hopes Tsukiyama won’t notice and judge him. He’ll get used to the smell soon enough, he’s sure. The small talk is distracting him at least.

“So why didn’t you bind his?” he asks, genuinely curious.

“Because it takes time and patience to do this. And I hold nothing against him.” Tsukiyama taps his skin with the brush, drawing small dots inside the circle. His posture looks awful, but he’s doing quick work, obviously having practiced drawing before. Hide’s actually kind of amazed how fast and precise his movements are. Or he thinks they’re precise as he has no idea where the dots are actually supposed to be, but Tsukiyama makes no move to correct them. He probably has a very nice handwriting as well. All flowy and neat.

“So if you did..?”

“I might have convinced him to let me do a few runes. Or done them while he sleeps.”

Hide laughs at that. Maybe he’s done them at sleepovers. People expected to see dicks on their faces for falling asleep first, but no, all they’ve got is some green patterns on their arms. Or maybe both. Maybe Tsukiyama would’ve drawn dicks. Hide sure would’ve.

“While he sleeps? Like broken into his house or something?” he jokes, snickering at his idea of rune dicks.

“Something like that.” Hide’s mouth hangs open for a few seconds.

“Wait. Have you done it? Broken into someone’s house?” he asks as soon as his jaws begin to work again. That sounds… Not so good.

“Once… Or twice. They deserved it though.”

Hide watches with his mind’s eye as Tsukiyama, a cat burglar with a traditional black ski mask, makes his way through the window into a sleeping person’s bedroom to write them full of magical script. He feels bad for them, whoever they are. He probably would’ve preferred someone to robbing him than waking up to bunch of weird drawings all over his body, made of green mush.

The more he learns about Tsukiyama, it gets clearer that he’s a lot more questionable character than Hide had first thought. And along with these revelations, he learns a few facts about himself. He’s either way too chill about people breaking into houses, or he was dropped on his head multiple times as a kid, and now lacks all self-preservation instinct. Maybe both. Probably both.

He stretches out his other hand for Tsukiyama to work on and inspects the weird marks decorating his skin. They’re actually pretty cool. Kinda like those swirly marks anime characters get on their skin when they’re possessed by that great power inside them. He knows it’s childish… But he feels a lot cooler all of a sudden. So badass.

Tsukiyama’s so quick with his hands, that Hide barely has had the time to fawn over his old markings, when he’s already ready to move on. His fingers take a hold on Hide’s chin, forcing him to look forward.

Hide hadn’t noticed, but Tsukiyama’s facial expression had changed into a serious one. He’s like a professional, all concentrated on his work. Hide almost wants to laugh, just because it’s kinda embarrassing having someone stare at him so intensely, but Tsukiyama’s brush is too close to his eye for him to actually go through with that. He likes his 20/20 vision.

Tsukiyama’s movements slow down, his paintbrush moving softly under Hide’s eye, tiny dots adorning his lower lid, sprinkling towards his cheekbone. The hairs tickle his nose, and Hide wants to sneeze, but he suppresses it. Tsukiyama moves on to the area around his lips, and no one should be leaning that close when doing something someone’s lips. This isn’t fair.

His heartrate is picking up, it’s pounding like ginormous drum in his ears, and Tsukiyama, that oblivious bastard keeps on leaning in. Unless he knows it? No, he wouldn’t be that mean. Would he?

Hide swallows.

Tsukiyama’s moving to his forehead now. His lips are parted, and Hide can see inside his mouth. And smell his breath. It smells good. Fresh and… Wet.

Oh, he is hopeless, he should’ve gotten laid earlier. This is bad. His ears must be red like someone’s spilled a red paint can on them by now. Just let this torture end.

Hide thinks he’s cursed. Tsukiyama licks his lips, just a little, and there he goes, a needy whine breaking the silence. He leans in, enamoured. Everything feels fuzzy. Like he’s being controlled.

Tsukiyama doesn’t look like he’s catching onto Hide’s current train of thought. He’s left panting, leaning his forehead against Tsukiyama’s, a disoriented gaze trying to find some sort of answer for his plight.

He can taste him. He can taste the breath escaping through his lips. Hide licks his lips, hands grabbing onto Tsukiyama’s shirt. It’s kind of like the first time he experienced an orgasm. Confused and not able to stop. Hopefully not as messy though.

His lips press against Tsukiyama’s mouth. He can hear a tiny sound, and for a fact can tell it wasn’t from him. It was higher than he could ever get, and he’s tried before, so he knows for sure. He stays still. With the kiss, it’s like oil is poured on the rusty wheels of his thought, and his brain gains back it’s control of itself. Which is quite a relief.

The first thing he actually thinks of is how long has he been kissing Tsukiyama. The second is why is he kissing Tsukiyama. The third is briefly wondering if he brushed his teeth this morning. On the fourth he’s back to thinking about Tsukiyama, thinking about kissing him, and how good it actually feels to be kissing him.

It’s actually really sweet. It’s been a while since he’s kissed like that. No teeth, no tongue, no groping hands. He sincerely hopes Tsukiyama likes it as much as he likes it, because he really, really likes it. Like, likes it like a pure pink heart type of like. He moves his lips just a tiny bit to see if Tsukiyama’s still all there. Tsukiyama keeps staring back at him. Seconds pass, and Hide thinks about moving away, but then the lids are lowering, and Tsukiyama is places his hands on Hide’s knees.

Well there went that idea of stopping.

He breathes through his nose, slowly, desperately hoping that Tsukiyama doesn’t mind his breath against his face. He doesn’t seem to.

Hide can feel small movement against his lips, like he’s being given tiny pecks without the lips actually moving off from his. Just harder presses and skin dragging against skin as they change position.

Regulating his breathing so much wasn’t the brightest idea, and now Hide’s feeling out of breath. He pulls away, huffing and puffing and definitely not attractive at all. Tsukiyama looks sort of surprised, and Hide watches him licking his lips again. He cannot suppress the tiny groan. Taking action all of a sudden like that is all fine and dandy, but it’s the aftermath he hates.

“Ah.” Tsukiyama’s staring at his face intensely, mouth slightly open. Hide leans away from him, sorta scared if he’s going to get told off or hit or cursed by Tsukiyama. Instead Tsukiyama cocks his head in wonder. Shit, he looks really adorable and Hide hates how it makes his heart skip like a goddamn lamb on a field.

“The script is gone. So you fulfilled your destiny by…” His words die out. Hide thinks the blush on his face is really cute, as well as how he keeps avoiding his eyes. Stop, just stop everything that you’re doing, or I’ll die, he begs silently.

“You mean… Because I kissed you?”

“I-, I-,” Tsukiyama stutters. Hide feels like rubbing his face. Watching the man get so flustered over a thing like that is deadly. His heart feels like it’s about to explode.

True to his word, the marks on his skin have vanished. It’s sort of freaky, how he could feel them drying on his skin a minute ago and now they’re nowhere in sight.

Hide looks back up from his arms to Tsukiyama. The palpitations are stronger than before.

Love. Really?

**Author's Note:**

> please end my suffering and tell me how to improve.  
> tell me if there's a garage sale for a sense of humour. 
> 
> writing tumblr: prettywordsforprettybirds  
> personal tumblr: buttfultsukineki


End file.
